'The Husbands Secret' Book Club Review

The general consensus as a book club was the book was easy to read due to the author’s easy style of writing.   Deep moral life issues are addressed in the book.  There are too many important issues in the story plot to give gravitas to life changing events and actions and the moral issues of:  Forgiveness; Guilt; Parenting; Marriage; Infidelity; Secrecy; and ‘what if’ scenarios.

Comments from the group

I enjoyed reading “The Husband’s Secret” and the author hooked me into the story very quickly.  Whilst searching for a piece of the Berlin wall for her daughter, Cecelia finds a letter from her husband with a note to read only after his death – what should she do?  What would you do?  After reading it the lives of the three main characters become inextricably linked.  At first I thought there was too much going on but very quickly got involved with each of the characters.  Cecelia is very organised and Tupperware stalwart – a pillar of the community.  Tess moves to the town after her husband and best friend say they’ve fallen in love – her best friend is also her cousin and business partner.  Rachel is the school secretary and cannot come to terms with the murder of her daughter almost twenty years previously – the person she is convinced is the culprit is also a teacher at the school.

 A very easy read and after looking up the details of the author realised I’d read “What Alice Forgot” some years ago.  Again, another easy read with characters in unusual circumstances.

 I would certainly recommend the book and will look out more of Liane Moriarty’s novels – ideal holiday reads. (Sharon C)

 

I enjoyed the book and read it at a sedate pace due to the easy style of writing and found it easy to read.  I found I would pick it up and put it down again and I did struggle to persevere with it.  (Ann)

 The author writes well with an easy style of writing, however, not as ‘meaty’ as Maya Angelou’s use of plot device in, ‘I know why the caged bird sings’ which held gravitas. John-Paul’s character losing the letter containing a life changing confession seemed out of character for John-Paul, who is organised and keeps records of tax statements in the attic and it therefore did not seem likely that he would have lost the letter. I would recommend the book as a holiday read.  (Silja)

 

I guessed the twist in the novel, it was a  ticking bomb waiting to go off,  and felt cheated by the framing device of “what ifs”; it was disappointing in comparison to the twist in, ‘Fingersmith’ by Sarah Waters which I thought was clever.  I did not feel the moral issue worked, for example, a similar  moral issue in the ’Blue diary’ was good in comparison to the moral issues in ‘The Husbands Secret’ and the writing was better. The novel keeps going back to incidents in the past and I did not feel comfortable with the moral excusing of the murder. (April)

I did not find the content at the beginning and end of the novel sensible, however, the novel picked up in the middle where Cecilia ponders whether to read the letter. Too much time is spent on the character of Cecilia and perhaps too much is written about Cecelia and Tupperware.  I liked the twist at the end of the novel regarding the murder. I found the novel similar to “Mountains Echo”. (Carey)

In ‘The Husband’s Secret’, we meet a whole host of characters, all jam-packed into 437 pages.  I read this book very quickly, way ahead of the Book Club meeting held to discuss the book. I had to go back to the book before the meeting to refresh my memory of what I had read as I could not recall the characters, nor the details of the story – I enjoyed the read but found it forgettable.  I would recommend the book as a holiday read.  (Sharon S)

 

During the meeting we discussed in general, books read this year, and how the novels selected for the club, challenge us to read genres outside our comfort zone.  A topic we return to time and again in the book club is the question of, “would this book translate well to film and would we prefer the book or film version of the novel or both mediums?”  The general consensus in the book club was that the novel would work well as a TV series or film.

 “The Husbands secret” would translate well to a TV series as there are lots of characters with intertwined life stories and not too in-depth, similar to the J.K. Rowling novel, ‘The Casual Vacancy’. (Silja)

I did not get passed the first chapter of the book.  Some books lend themselves better to film and this may be the case with ‘The Husband’s Secret’, for example, I could read and watch, ‘The Green Mile’ or ‘Shawshank Redemption’. (Nick)

 

  The response from the group to the question of whether we would have chosen to read John Paul's letter... the unanimous answer...

 “Yes, we would have read it!”